


Unbreakable

by jesse_panic



Category: Watchmen (Comic)
Genre: F/F, Romance, trigger warning (mention of murder), trigger warning (rape recovery)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesse_panic/pseuds/jesse_panic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short sad scene in which Ursula and Sally resolve some of their past differences before Ursula leaves Watchmen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbreakable

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of a pairing guessing meme, which is why neither of the character's names are mentioned.
> 
> (Spoilers) Sally was raped by the Comedian and before Ursula leaves the Watchmen, effectively causing her own death (end of spoilers) so whilst nothing is explicitly mentioned, both of those events are referenced, so if these are triggers for you, beware.

Whispers were exchanged throughout the group. Rumours spread, and through them the truth shone out. What had happened caused an uproar, but a muted one. The powers that be didn’t want this to spread too far. That was how it came to be that she packed her bags, said her farewells and climbed up the stairs to find the girl with a broken heart.

She knocked as softly as she could on the door. A muffled voice, like bubblegum wrapped in tissue paper, asked her in. So she opened the door, and looked for Her. The Tearaway. The Firebrand. The Sassy Kid. But all she could find was a shell, caked in the delicate powders of gaudy makeup, lying on the bed, her head in her hands. The shell looked up at her through dry locks of bright hair, imploring her to speak.

“Hello, you.” she said quietly.

To the ears of the shell, her voice was soft caramel, the docile purr of a panther. She stirred. A panther could protect her. “Hi,” the second noise was indistinct, it sounded like a sob from somewhere in the body which shouldn’t cry or feel pain or betrayal. She put a tissue over her lips, closed her eyes and continued. “Look at you, you look so... beautiful.” Hazel eyes met black ones, and the panther knew she meant it. In a way, she was disgusted. Before the ugliness, before the things that had fractured and broken this girl, she would never have said it, never have let her share her hold on the word ‘beautiful’. She felt sick. Sick with rage, sick she couldn’t even return the compliment. For something had broken the beautiful girl- already a mockery of women- and made her grow up suddenly into adult bones around something devastating and jagged and raw inside her, something that could never be undone.

In the failure for words, she felt all her emotions hit her all at once. She wanted to protect the girl, her old enemy, and simultaneously love and shield and honour and rip and tear and break in her name. And yet, she knew she couldn’t. If she could she would have cried for her, but then she would have become weak, and for her, that was not an option. Especially now. 

“I’m leaving today.” Was all she could think to say.

The figure on the bed wilted again. “I know. I could hear the voices from downstairs,” she met the gaze of the other woman, and for another moment, she was sincere. “I wish I could be like you.”

The impassive face of the woman, the true and unbreakable woman, tensed for just a second, but that was enough. “No, you don’t.” she gestured out of the window, “I’ll be hated out there. I know you don’t want that. Because no matter how bad things are in here, you will go far. You will be rich, and you will be happy, somewhere, and live a long life. I’ll die much sooner, mark my words.”

Horrified, eyes full of misunderstanding, the broken woman became a little girl again. “Then why don’t you stop?!”

A faraway smile gripped the otherwise expressionless face. “Because if I didn’t, I’d never be happy.” And with that, she kissed her, just once, on the lips. “Goodbye,” she walked away from the bed, and back to the door once more, “And be brave. I know you can make good.”

The girl felt stronger somehow, as if some of the woman’s power; that fierce, magnetic energy, had been passed to her in the kiss. Quickly and easily she stretched herself forward to the edge of the bed. 

“You will come visit, right? If not for the others then just... for me?”

Standing in the doorway, the other woman smiled, outlined by the light pouring in from the oblivious outside. “I’ll try- and I mean that- but I don’t think you’ll see me again.” And with that, she walked away and out of her life, and the girl was transformed. She learnt to inhabit her bones, push the fear away and- although she still hurt inside, she learnt to take and use that, and even- years later- transcend it into something truly beautiful.

But the other woman had been wrong, she did see her again. In newspapers, on the news, even in books and journals years later, when she was old and fat and happy somewhere else. And on her deathbed, in the last few days of her long and eventually happy life, she still thought about her; her stern face, that vicious voice, forever powerful, forever unbreakable, forever young.


End file.
